Comet-Like Object Falling Toward White Dwarf (Artist’s Concept)

This artist's concept shows a massive, comet-like object falling toward a white dwarf. New Hubble Space Telescope findings are evidence for a belt of comet-like bodies orbiting the white dwarf, similar to our solar system's Kuiper Belt. The findings also suggest the presence of one or more unseen surviving planets around the white dwarf, which may have perturbed the belt to hurl icy objects into the burned-out star.

About the data

Datasets used for these results are from the HST proposal 13453, PI: M. Jura (UCLA), S. Xu (ESO), and B. Klein and B. Zuckerman (UCLA).